Racial profiling concerns grow as ICE expands presence in Twin Cities

An 18-year-old Guyanese U.S. citizen had just finished a quick stop at a gas station near Hamline University in St. Paul when federal immigration agents approached him and demanded identification. His ID had expired, and the encounter quickly escalated into a tense standoff over proof of citizenship.

According to the student’s mother, whom the Minnesota Star Tribune is not identifying because of concerns about retaliation by immigration authorities, her son called from the parking lot and asked her to bring his birth certificate. She said agents allowed him to leave after she arrived and showed the document.

The stop was brief, but she said it left her family shaken.

The Dec. 12 encounter is among several in which U.S. citizens in the Twin Cities say they were stopped or detained by federal immigration agents despite asserting their citizenship. The actions come as federal immigration enforcement has intensified across the Twin Cities under Operation Metro Surge, a Department of Homeland Security initiative that has increased ICE’s visibility in public spaces.

Civil rights advocates say the surge is reshaping daily life in immigrant communities — including for U.S. citizens — and heightening fears of racial profiling.

“I think it’s the first time a population that’s overwhelmingly U.S. citizens are being harassed on U.S. streets,” said Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “It’s a dark day for America and a dark day for all of us.”

Attorneys and advocates say the encounters are part of a growing national debate over how far federal agents can go in briefly stopping people based on their appearance, language or workplace. Critics say the practice has gained new momentum following a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision.

“What happened to me was unjust, uncalled for. I was simply on my lunch break,” Mubashir said.

U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar said a similar encounter happened to her 20-year-old son over the weekend, when federal immigration officers pulled him over and asked him to prove his citizenship — a passport he “always carries” out of fear, she told WCCO. Omar said her son, who was born in the United States, has had multiple prior encounters with agents and accused ICE of racially profiling young Somali men.

In a Dec. 16 post on X, the Department of Homeland Security pushed back sharply, writing that “allegations that ICE engages in ‘racial profiling’ are disgusting, reckless and categorically FALSE. What makes someone a target for immigration enforcement is if they are illegally in the U.S. — NOT their skin color, race, or ethnicity.” The agency said its officers act under the Fourth Amendment and “use ‘reasonable suspicion’ to make arrests.”

ICE did not respond to requests for comment from the Minnesota Star Tribune.

The term “Kavanaugh stop” refers to Justice Brett Kavanaugh, whose concurring opinion in a September Supreme Court case, Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo, has become a flash point as similar reports spread from Los Angeles to Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Although Kavanaugh wrote only for himself, attorneys say immigration officials across the country appear to be treating the opinion as if it were binding.

“These stops themselves seem to suggest that racial profiling is going on, or at least that the logic of ‘Kavanaugh stops’ is going on,” said University of Minnesota Law School professor Emmanuel Mauleón.

The underlying legal dispute centers on whether immigration officers can briefly detain people based on a combination of factors courts have traditionally viewed with skepticism.

In July, a federal district judge barred agents from stopping people based solely on apparent race or ethnicity; speaking Spanish or accented English; being at locations such as day-labor sites or bus stops; and appearing to work in jobs like construction or car washing. The judge found those factors alone did not meet the Fourth Amendment’s requirement for individualized reasonable suspicion.

The Ninth Circuit largely upheld that ruling. But on Sept. 8, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority agreed to temporarily lift the restrictions while the case proceeds, allowing immigration agents to resume the contested stops.

Lower courts, Mauleón said, had previously ruled that factors such as race, language and location alone were not enough to justify detaining someone.

“This is really a major turn in the doctrine if the Court were to adopt his position,” he said. “Because it would essentially be adopting the position that racial profiling, ethnic profiling, is reasonable under the Constitution, which no other court has said thus far.”

Federal officials have defended the enforcement tactics, arguing in court filings that the lower-court order blocking certain immigration stops “significantly interferes” with their ability to carry out large-scale operations.

In its petition to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Justice Department said the injunction imposed a “straitjacket” on immigration officers and “thwart[ed] enforcement of the immigration laws” across one of the country’s most populous regions.

The filing portrays the Los Angeles region — where the underlying case originated — as a critical hub for immigration enforcement and argues that officers must be allowed to draw on their training, experience and contextual clues when deciding whom to briefly detain.

ICE, in recent statements, has said Operation Metro Surge is intended to remove “the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens” from Minnesota communities and improve public safety. The agency, which has not provided a complete record of the individuals it has detained in Minnesota, has emphasized that many of those arrested have old removal orders or criminal convictions and that stepped-up operations are necessary to carry out federal mandates.

Critics say the real-world impact of the legal shift is already being felt.

To them, a “Kavanaugh stop” describes an encounter in which federal agents detain someone — often Latino or Black and working a low-wage job — and check their IDs or assertions of citizenship until they are satisfied, however long that takes.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, argued in dissent that the Los Angeles tactics likely violated the Fourth Amendment, citing sworn statements of agents leaping from unmarked vehicles, racking rifles and detaining people without asking basic questions.

Although the case originated in California, advocates say similar dynamics are emerging in Minnesota.

For many advocates, the recent stops of U.S. citizens underscore how quickly the enforcement surge is reshaping daily life.

Julia Decker, policy director at the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, said reports of brief stops have left many Minnesotans unsure how to protect themselves.

“Even when you know your rights and assert your rights, the agents of the federal government might violate your rights anyway,” Decker said.

She added that the surge has been marked by a lack of transparency.

“It is becoming almost impossible to get even a rough estimate of the magnitude of the problems because there is no sort of reporting on numbers of stops, arrests, detentions and people who are being taken away,” Decker said.